Starting A Yoga Practice In Our Later Years

Starting or practicing yoga in our later years isn’t about mastering challenging poses such as intricate arm balances or headstands (unless you’re already proficient at them). In fact, it’s about giving up expectations, and embracing “what’s so” for us in the present.

Yoga, at any age, is about moving our body in a way that is safe and honoring, starting from whatever physical condition we’re in, and gradually expanding our capacity, adding strength, openness, and balance. It’s about getting out of our head, not engaging with the thoughts that tell us what we ought to do or can’t do. Our journey is to release those dismenpowering thoughts, so that something else becomes available. Instead, breathing and feeling our way through our practice is the journey. A nourishing and constructive yoga practice is about patience and grace.

In so doing, over time, we find that we’ve not only maintained our physical attributes that keep us moving forward in life, but we’ve enhanced them. In the process, we learn much about ourselves - moving from thinking to feeling, opening our hearts to grace, and finding wholemess in the union of our mind, body and spirit.

Age is an arbitrary number. My commitment is that from where you are right now in your physical body, you expand who you know yourself to be, become stronger, make the tasks of dailing living easier, and age gracefully through a yoga practice that meets your needs. You might just have some fun, a whole lot of satisfaction, and discover greater peace of mind along the way.